GATINEAU/MONTREAL – Canadians wishing to attend next month’s Discoverability Summit in Toronto may now register to receive tickets.
Co-hosted by the CRTC and the NFB, the Discoverability Summit is scheduled for May 10 and 11 at the Thompson Hotel in Toronto. Guest speakers include Jeremy Singer of Entertainment Tonight Canada, Amy Terrill of Music Canada and Louis Lalande, EVP of CBC/Radio-Canada French Services. Other major players from the digital media sector are also expected to participate, and will be revealed in the coming weeks.
The two-day affair will enable participants to discuss strategies, tools and approaches to improve the…
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New three-year plan
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has released its new three-year plan that includes new basic telecommunications services policy, the Discoverability Summit, and a review of the Wireless Code among its priorities.
Other planned activities include licence renewals for French-language and English-language television services, and an effort to continue to promote and enforce the country’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) and the unsolicited telecommunications rules.
Those initiatives are among the goals that the Commission has outlined for completion during 2016-19 under the pillars of ‘create’, ‘connect’, and ‘protect’, that it says reflect its commitment to “implementing sound management practices and fulfilling its mandate…
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OTTAWA – Consumer groups DiversityCanada Foundation and the National Pensioners Federation has reached the end of the line in its appeal for costs after a long fight with the CRTC that started with the Commission’s release of the Wireless Code of Conduct in 2013.
DiversityCanada sought to have the Wireless Code (Telecom Regulatory Policy 2013-271) reviewed and varied over the expiry of prepaid wireless service cards (which we covered here).
The CRTC denied the R&V and then also denied the group’s subsequent claims for costs (of about $25,000) as well. DiversityCanada then applied for a…
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The viewer rules
By Greg O’Brien
WHILE THE NEW DIGITAL GIZMOS and software used for TV newsgathering, dissemination and consumption has undergone wholesale, massive change, the way TV stations construct their evening news shows still looks very familiar.
Reporters spend the day gathering stories, editing video, voicing and so on and then anchors hit the air at six and 11 introducing those stories and throwing things over to the sports anchor, weather specialists and bantering with each other, live. While the reporters stories run and commercials air, anchors generally still sit and wait for that red light to go back on, the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down a request by VMedia Inc. to add U.S.-based cable television shopping service QVC to the list of non-Canadian programming services and stations authorized for distribution north of the border.
In its decision on Monday, the Commission concluded that if authorized, QVC would be carrying on a broadcasting undertaking in whole or in part in Canada, a move that is contingent upon it either obtaining a broadcasting licence or being otherwise authorized pursuant to a valid exemption order. The CRTC added that it is unable to issue a broadcasting licence to QVC and that the…
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CHATHAM, ON – TekSavvy Solutions is applauding the CRTC’s decision that determined that wholesale telecom rates paid by competitive telecom providers are neither just nor reasonable.
In a statement responding to Telecom Decision CRTC 2016-117, the independent telco said that lower wholesale rates will allow it, and others, the chance to bring new services like video competition to the marketplace.
“The CRTC found that Internet traffic grows much faster than 20 percent annually, and that the cost of routing a gigabit falls by much more than 10 percent each year,” said TekSavvy chief legal & regulatory officer…
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Dear Editor,
The commentary published on March 30, “An unrepresentative survey,” fails to take into account important details of the public opinion research on telecom services. As a result, claiming that the study “missed speaking to Canadians who don’t have home Internet” could not be further from the truth.
Our objective was to hear from a broad diversity of Canadians, including those in rural or remote areas who have limited or no access to broadband Internet services. The survey was designed using a methodology that is recognized as an industry best practice. It included a representative sample…
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Canadians are receiving the broadband speeds they're paying for
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The majority of broadband Internet services in Canada are as fast or faster than their advertised download and upload speeds, says a CRTC report on Internet services.
The preliminary report, released Thursday, found that most services from the country's major Internet service providers delivered between 109% and 122% of the advertised download speed, and that performance was largely consistent across all geographic regions of Canada in a mix of urban and rural settings.
Services using fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technologies delivered 119% of advertised download speed on average, while cable/hybrid-fibre co-axial (HFC) delivered 103%,…
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TORONTO – Cord-cutters or -nevers missing their live sports now have the option to buy Sportsnet Now, a direct-to-consumer service, without a pay-television subscription.
Launching nationally on Friday, the live streaming service (including the regular TV ad load) of the six Sportsnet linear channels promises select NHL, MLB, NBA, soccer and tennis events, as well as original programming like Tim & Sid and Sportsnet Central. Sportsnet Now will be available on tablet, mobile and online for a monthly subscription of $24.99 with no contract and a 7-day trial period. It remains included for existing Sportsnet TV distributors such as Shaw, Telus, Bell,…
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WEDNESDAY, THE CRTC released a report by EKOS Research as part of its so-called Talk Broadband initiative.
“EKOS Research Associates conducted two types of public opinion research on telecommunication services in Canada and prepared a report for the CRTC. The first part of the report presents results gathered through a questionnaire that was completed by more than 30,000 Canadians. Between January 14 and February 29, 2016, close to 29,000 individuals completed the questionnaire. EKOS also administered the questionnaire with a separate sample group of over 1,600 Canadians representative of the population as…
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